Consultations, Workshops and Lectures in:

Creative, collaborative hospital programs from preconception through the first year post partum.

• Searching For Excellence

This talk discusses what women and their families want and need from the healthcare system, no matter where they live, what language they speak, what economic status they come from. It looks at the roles we all play - doctors, nurses, midwives, lactation consultants, mother support groups. It considers the words we use, the power we have, and how these things can affect new families negatively or positively. This talk examines our relationships not only with the families we work with, but also with each other as professionals. This is a nice plenary opening or closing talk.

• Working as a Team: Helping Women Feed Their Babies

This two-day workshop provides the basics of breastfeeding and early management issues Ð in the hospital, clinic and community. It is a helpful and effective beginning for staff education in research-based infant feeding and covers the basic didactic education requirements for the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative.

• The Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: A Guide for Best Practice

This 2 or 3 day in-person course provides the education cornerstone for hospitals to pursue the designation of "Baby Friendly." This workshop explores the rapidly changing role of all healthcare professionals in caring for pregnant and new families and is designed to help hospitals and communities provide the basics of early breastfeeding care, with a focus on implementing The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding. We recommend an initial face to face program to train the first staff. This initial program can then be followed with subsequent in-person trainings. In the future, staff wil be able to be trained through our online Baby Friendly modules.

• The Confusion of Numbers for Breastfeeding Newborns: How we make clinical decisions

In the midst of historic promotion of exclusive breastfeeding by various international pediatric societies, the use of formula supplementation for newborn infants has reached record highs throughout the world. The knowledge that there is a wide range of ÒnormalÓ is often forgotten when it comes to discussion, interpretation and clinical practices regarding early supplementation of newborns The criteria appear to be based on single studies and chosen arbitrary numbers, with an inclination to base clinical practices on partial knowledge, fear of lawsuits or personal opinion, rather than critical thinking. As a result of averages, means, and medians, healthcare systems have created erroneous dictates and policies about the frequency of early breastfeedings, the length of feedings, the expected breastmilk volume consumed per feeding, or the expected number of feedings per day. What is the origin for assuming that healthy full term newborns feed 8 times each day? Where does it say that 10% weight loss in the first days of life requires immediate supplementation with breastmilk substitutes? There are many practices which deserve questions. Do we really know the absolute answers? Probably not, but we can come up with a more astute process for evaluating our care. What has happened to our ability to assess, think and individualize our care for each mother and baby, based on research, our own and othersÕ experiences, and some good, old-fashioned common sense? This is the genuine ÒBest Practice.Ó

• The Challenge of Postpartum Relationships

What happens to fathers when partners choose to breastfeed? What happens to couple relationships after the birth of a baby when a woman is breastfeeding? This lecture discusses couple communication issues, discussion of postpartum sexuality, and the impact of breastfeeding on sexuality. The prevalence and management of postpartum depression and adaptation issues while breastfeeding are also discussed. Depending on time, this can also include women's use of Lactation Amenorrhea (LAM) for contraception.